If you don’t have butterflies in your stomach, and your heart doesn’t beat out of your chest….

Today is my birthday. There have been a few before this one so I’ve gotten pretty good about what to do with the day. At some point in human history it became popular to celebrate a birthday all week. Never one to shun a new concept….my friends gave me a box of truffles last weekend and I’ve had a happy birthday truffle every day thIs week.

In the early years, the cake, presents and something fun made the day memorable.

As a teenager, the presents and something fun made for a party worth remembering. Mid-life it is something fun and memorable that means birthday.

Then there comes a point that it is life itself that becomes memorable. No longer the day, but the days that have brought you to this day that make the memories.

There are only so many presents you can remember. My parents gave me a bicycle that had a beautiful banana seat and tassels on the handlebars that flew in the wind when I rode.

For a long time, my sister and I both got presents on both of our birthdays – I suppose to avoid a fight. The earliest present I remember was a pretend princess phone. I loved that phone. Now that I think about it that may have been the present she got.

My husband bought tickets to Europe for my birthday one year but it was a time when there were real paper tickets that came in the mail….I went to the mailbox that day and opened the envelope before he could stop me.

That leaves about 50 birthday presents I don’t necessarily remember.

I do remember my Mother and Dad calling me on my birthday when I was young and living alone. She would be on the phone in the bedroom and he in the kitchen – they would sing Happy Birthday all the way through before they spoke a word. I thought it was so silly…but now I find it is a fond memory. My husband sang to me this morning.

We want to believe we become wiser as the years go on. I don’t know if this is necessarily true. Some things I have learned many years ago, some things I have learned just yesterday. These things that we learn, they change in value as we age…some becoming more important while others become irrelevant.

There are a few lessons that stand out for me at the moment:

Whatever you have done in life has brought you to this day, and today is a new day.

Clean up the poop or eventually you will step in it.

Life may not begin or end the way you expected, but if you think the middle is the most rewarding your focus may be too narrow.

The days are full of opportunities and if you have not been out of breath with excitement, butterflies in your stomach and your heart beating out of your chest in the recent past, you may not be accomplishing everything you are capable of.

Yes, this has been a year worth remembering and a Happy Birthday indeed!